For any interested parties, here's what I wrote in a (promptly deleted) diary sort of blog about moving.
Woke up crabby with a hint of bull in a china shop. Promptly stubbed my toe on everything we own, cursed it out, had some tea in a cup that turned out to be dirty, cursed at that too, knocked some more things over, then ran down the street to Peet's in the hopes that coffee will even me out. My cappuccino is 90% foam and I remain irritable.
California has been good to me so far, even through this morning's grumpiness. I continue to apply for jobs that are more in line with what I came here for (art, grad school, fame, fortune and fig trees) but am piecing together working as transcriptionist for art museums and jack-of-all-trades for a succulent nursery in Berkeley. This isn't a job I would feel comfortable committing to long-term, but I do enjoy the novelty of working in the California sunshine while picking dead leaves off of cacti with tweezers. It feels...California. I still don't quite know what that means. I think in my mind SF was LA but with hemp instead of botox, but it's really probably more like Seattle. Which I've never been to.
I'm enthralled by the hills on my side of the Bay. I can't believe how long I lived in the flat grayness of Chicago, how long I allowed myself to live without beauty like this. I truly love Chicago. I love it's square blocks and easy bike-rides, the bacchanalia of summer before the draconian winters. I suspect that I will tire of fig and olive trees, of organic food and awareness-of-all-causes. But that certainly hasn't happened this month.
Our studio apartment (especially in it's half-moved-into state) is crowded, but I do love it. When I wake in the morning, I see the whole world shrouded in fog. Two hours later the temperature has risen 30 degrees and as the sun clears the clouds I can see tiny ships in the Berkeley marina and the hills of Marin county. When the leaves die on the oak tree on the sidewalk, I'll be able to see all the buildings of San Francisco, which we only see now as twinkles between leaves at night. As the sun goes down, everything burns orange, and I watch the Ethiopian and Korean restaurants filter the street crowd. The library across the street has an open and closed sign so big I can read it from my kitchen table, and I go there to type and check e-mails. The lights are never on until nightfall, and all the windows are open. Sometimes there are bees resting on the covers of the Alice Waters book I want and I have to wait for them to get bored and fly away before I can learn about vinaigrette.
From the nursery I have been given many baby plants, most still attached to a fallen leaf of their mother plant. They line the windows and get so cold at night that I wonder they don't die. I've lost my cigarettes, but at night with the windows open the smoke blows back in, mingling with the smell of the daal Eric is preparing.
I get crabby. I can be mean. I yell at objects, even though it's me who put them in my way. But I'm happy.
California has been good to me so far, even through this morning's grumpiness. I continue to apply for jobs that are more in line with what I came here for (art, grad school, fame, fortune and fig trees) but am piecing together working as transcriptionist for art museums and jack-of-all-trades for a succulent nursery in Berkeley. This isn't a job I would feel comfortable committing to long-term, but I do enjoy the novelty of working in the California sunshine while picking dead leaves off of cacti with tweezers. It feels...California. I still don't quite know what that means. I think in my mind SF was LA but with hemp instead of botox, but it's really probably more like Seattle. Which I've never been to.
I'm enthralled by the hills on my side of the Bay. I can't believe how long I lived in the flat grayness of Chicago, how long I allowed myself to live without beauty like this. I truly love Chicago. I love it's square blocks and easy bike-rides, the bacchanalia of summer before the draconian winters. I suspect that I will tire of fig and olive trees, of organic food and awareness-of-all-causes. But that certainly hasn't happened this month.
Our studio apartment (especially in it's half-moved-into state) is crowded, but I do love it. When I wake in the morning, I see the whole world shrouded in fog. Two hours later the temperature has risen 30 degrees and as the sun clears the clouds I can see tiny ships in the Berkeley marina and the hills of Marin county. When the leaves die on the oak tree on the sidewalk, I'll be able to see all the buildings of San Francisco, which we only see now as twinkles between leaves at night. As the sun goes down, everything burns orange, and I watch the Ethiopian and Korean restaurants filter the street crowd. The library across the street has an open and closed sign so big I can read it from my kitchen table, and I go there to type and check e-mails. The lights are never on until nightfall, and all the windows are open. Sometimes there are bees resting on the covers of the Alice Waters book I want and I have to wait for them to get bored and fly away before I can learn about vinaigrette.
From the nursery I have been given many baby plants, most still attached to a fallen leaf of their mother plant. They line the windows and get so cold at night that I wonder they don't die. I've lost my cigarettes, but at night with the windows open the smoke blows back in, mingling with the smell of the daal Eric is preparing.
I get crabby. I can be mean. I yell at objects, even though it's me who put them in my way. But I'm happy.
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